Stealing Taffy (Bigler, North Carolina #3) - Susan Donovan Page 0,41

shiver with remembered pleasure, but he knew he needed to be on top of his game here. He pulled himself together. “I’m not making fun of you, Tanyalee. I sincerely wanted to know what it’s called because you wear a lot of pink, but every time I see you it’s a slightly different shade.”

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s ‘seashell blush.’ But how do you know I wear a variety of pink shades?”

“You were wearing pink when I met you, and you’re wearing pink today.” Dante smiled at her, but apparently this observation was not a conversation starter on its own merits. “So what exactly is seashell blush?”

Taffy pulled her hand from his grasp and looked at him like he was an idiot. Maybe he was.

She tilted her head to the side. “Listen, secret agent man. It’s called seashell blush because it’s the color of the inside of a seashell when it … oh, forget it. So you asked for five minutes and I agreed, but if you think you get extra time for empty sweet talk you’ve got another thing coming.”

* * *

Wainright Miller poked his head into the old insurance office building and felt his eyes widen. “Well, what do you know?” he mumbled to himself. “Candy-ass Carmichael’s really pulling this off.”

Her mother—the crazy, oversexed, rabble-rousing old bat who happened to be one of his residents—had told him that renovations were coming along nicely at the bakery, but he hadn’t believed her. He hadn’t trusted Jacinta Carmichael since she’d whipped the senior citizen residents into a frenzy over the quality of the dining room food.

Cherokee Pines belonged to him. Not the oldies. And that was something Jacinta had never seemed to understand.

Miller sighed in resignation. The sole reason for this uncomfortable visit was the promise he’d made to the residents. He’d assured them that Candy’s desserts would be available in the assisted living dining room. But God, did it ever pain him to have to pay the bitch for pies and cakes—no matter how good they were.

There was another reason this visit was going to be just downright unpleasant. Miller hadn’t spoken to Candy since the day Gerrall Spivey—that useless moron of a front desk clerk—had bound and gagged him, pushed him into the trunk of his own car, kidnapped Candy, and taken them both out to the compound.

Months had passed, but the irony of it all still made him smile. By the time the cops showed up to rescue the two of them, anyone who could identify his role in the meth operation was either dead or bleeding in the dirt, and poor Mr. Wainright Miller was just the victimized owner-operator of Cherokee Pines Assisted Living.

It was incredibly good luck, a random stroke of universal genius. Of course, the Ramirez camp hadn’t been happy that about eighty thousand in product had been confiscated and one of their busiest kitchens busted. But months of the cartel’s profits were safely stashed in the Cherokee Pines front office safe, next to the insurance checks and legitimate cash receipts, and because of that, they’d given him a chance to redeem himself.

All he had to do was manage logistics for the Possum Ridge pot farm until harvest—his last job in the drug business. After this, he was out. By quitting time he would have all the loose ends tied up. Cherokee Pines would be sold to the Charlotte-based management group who’d been courting him for years, and every dime of profit from the sale—and every dime skimmed from the top of Ramirez’s operations—would be safely deposited in his Cayman Islands accounts. He would have a new identity so he could enjoy it all in peace.

“Hello?” Miller called out into the cavernous open space. “Anyone around?”

Fuck. Halliday is here.

“Hey, Mr. Miller! Come on in. Candy’s back in the kitchen and she’s expecting you.”

“Hello, Sheriff. Nice to see you.”

Halliday crossed the wide expanse of the room and held out his hand for a shake. Miller smiled. It gave him a perverse thrill every time he ran into this buffoon and played all nicey-nice. The guy was clueless. No wonder the Ramirez cartel was still willing to invest in Cataloochee County. For every operation that was busted, ten more went undetected. Selling drugs out of this county was like doling out funnel cakes to fatties at the Volunteer Fire Carnival.

“How’ve you been, Wainright? You doing okay?”

“Ah, you know, things are getting back to normal after that horrible kidnapping ordeal I went through with Candy. I’m trying